• DESIGN?

    I still have grave doubtsabout designers in general, clothinghouses in more particular, and above all furniture. You have to ask if the personwho designed this chairwas somehow incapable of sitting,or simply wanted somethingthat looked artistic, to hellwith the comfort of its occupant. And some designers take thisto extremes, hoping perhapsfor some measure of eternal recognition.Take…


  • THE CANNERY, LATE INTO THE NIGHT

    The cannery, long before it was a mall, sat on the verge of the bay bellowing steam into the night sky shrouding the stars in a gauze blanket, listening to the braying of the harbor seals pleading for the morning’s dross to be returned to the bay waters. The otters lie on their backs peering…


  • GLASS HOUSES

    You want to yell at him, tell him to stop, that it is too soon, that he is not ready, cannot be, won’t be for months to come, but you know he will not listen to you standing, gesticulating, imagining a stone in your hand, shattering the glass walls, the crackling gaining his full attention…


  • VILLAGE

    The village of my grandfather still stands amid the fields adobe walls stained by soot from the fireplace birds nesting in the summer warmed chimney singing. The ancient scythe leans against the wall, its blade embedded in the crusted soil as the old tractor idles in the field. Armies have trod this ground ignoring the…


  • A TURN

    He is never certain what to do on days like this one, when the winter takes a particularly nasty turn, the temperature hovers at utter emptiness, and the wind elects to try to enfold everything it can reach in a coat of frost, that bleaches life away. He walks each day, through the nearby park…